Bricks in Motion
We are a friendly filmmaking community devoted to the art of stop-motion animation using LEGO® and similar construction toys. Here, you can share your work, join our community of other brickfilmers, and participate in periodic animation contests!
A place to discuss, share, and create stop motion films.
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Making fun of a troll.
Why? It serves no purpose and it is confusing.
Unless you really are this "troll," who was banned for good reason.
I certainly hope I am not a troll. It may not make much sense, but it's like an inside joke, just like whenever someone mentions onion rings, and no crime broke out, or crawne, or something. I guess you won't really get what I am referring to unless you are active in the skype chats.
Is filmmaking a positive future? I never really thought about the fact that most of the movies I see are directed by famous directors, and that I may NOT be the next Steven Spielberg. That, however, is due to the fact that I could care less about the money and the fame. Okay, I take that back, I do care about them. However, even without them, I still couldn't think of doing anything but filmmaking (except maybe acting). Making movies is what I love to do, and a person should always do what they love. As for getting to the big screen, it's time for a Gone With the Wind quote: " If I have to lie, cheat, steal, or kill, Lindsay Fleay as my witness, I will be a film director!" Just kidding, I would never do any of that stuff. Hmm, maybe I could buy some stocks...
P.S. I sure hope the theaters don't collapse! Though it WOULD allow more films in, theaters have been around since the first films started being marketed! I'd hate for that experience of sitting in a giant, dark room, lit only by the portal to a distant world, surrounded by strangers and surround sound, to disappear.
Last edited by texas_cheeto_hog (July 8, 2014 (10:05pm))
I don't know if you guys still have drive-in theatres - where you park your car and hang a speaker off your window? That died out here because movie theatres provide better quality. I predict movie theatres will stop being popular when home theatres (blu-ray/3d screens/surround sound) become common place.
Not to mention the price gauging on movie tickets these days ...
I once read an article that a film expert predicts that within the next decade films will be like going to a sporting match. You might go and see one a year, and it will be a more exclusive experience.
I'm not sure if that will ever happen or not. Even the big TV screens aren't up to the quality of a good cinema screen, and the audio is far from it IMO.
I certainly hope I am not a troll. It may not make much sense, but it's like an inside joke, just like whenever someone mentions onion rings, and no crime broke out, or crawne, or something. I guess you won't really get what I am referring to unless you are active in the skype chats.
Since when are trolls considered to be inside jokes?
As someone who does have (quite a few) art house theaters in there town, I really enjoy going to the theater, and that is coming from someone who has a high def projector, a quality sound system and a pristine 124 inch screen and tiered couches in their basement. Seeing a new film with a good audience is a wonderful experience that can boarder on religious/spiritual. The Egyptian, one of the beloved theaters here in Seattle closed a year or so ago and SIFF (The Seattle International Film Festival) was able to buy the theater and is restoring it, their yearly programming ranges from some of the more art house titles you might expect to independent horror/genre films along with some select block busters to themed rerun programs like the Magnificent Andersons where they will show a P.T. Anderson film one day followed by a Wes Anderson film the next day. (And they also have a 'no babies in arms' rule which is the best rule ever) If you do live in a town with an art house theater please support it, these theaters are the reason I haven't given up to going to the cinema.
But going back to the original post (yeah I know it was over a year ago)
...It's know that famous actors and directors have huge salaries like 20 million per film, but the truth is most actors are paid $9 per hour, and most have a second job to cope, and an ordinary new director is said to earn approximately $20,000 to $50,000 per year. I don't want to be a dream killer, but I am just showing reality. Can we see film making in our future?
$9 an hours is below my states minimum wage, I want to make my own particular type of films and here I am in 2014 taking time off work to finishes a short I started in 2010. I am the adult that still wants to make films but knows it's not profitable. If I could make around $12 an hour to make my own films or even someone else's films that I was excited about full time I would do it. Things like Patreon and Kickstarter are exciting and interesting developments that put a bit of power back into the people's hands. I found out about it through a friend who is in the early stages of setting up a writing magazine and later found out that James Morr was trying it out. I was wondering how he was doing as he has a lot more youTube subscribers then most of us, but despite the fact that 24,000+ people have viewed his Patreon video he has 6 patrons at $29 per video. $29 might be more then most of us make on a single video but for the amount of work it takes, even to make a quicky it's chump change. Maybe the people who want to see a 30 second joke short are less likely to subscribe to something like that. I realize that many of the members here have non-animation related film goals but these sort of grass roots funding sites apply to those projects as well.
It will be interesting to see how things continue, there have been a few brickfilmers who have got completion funds for there films on Kickstarter but that is a far cry from doing animation full time. I know I gave up on monetizing my animation years ago and disabled all forms of ads from my YouTube page, not that that really makes a difference when you only have 100 subscribers and the top viewed video only has 10,000 views and was uploaded 8 years ago.
I don't know if you guys still have drive-in theatres
I wasn't on the Earth at the time where such things existed and thrived. But, I do know that there still might be at least five functioning drive-ins that I know of today.
That died
You know what else died? Renting films at stores. I remember a time when there was a such thing as Blockbuster and Hollywood Video. And my parents have told me and my brothers of a time when such things as a Movie House, and how it was highly likely to find one in every strip mall.
But, in a time where you can watch movies online, the video rental system is in its last days. The Hollywood Video and Blockbuster stores have all closed down in the city where I live. And there is only one Movie House left here, and luckily, it's within ten minutes of my home, just across the bay. And I don't think Redbox is even being used that much anymore!
It is so much more easy to stream your favourite films and shows online, and even through your videogame console. My mom keeps talking about how she wants to get rid of cable, because of the aforementioned fact. And I don't think the TV or the cinema is the first place my dad goes to when he wants entertainment. He can click a single button with his finger, and his Google Nexus tablet switches on.
I've loved films ever since I can remember. But togfox, the words you speak may just end up being the sad truth. We live in a world that is constantly changing. It was just a little over a hundred years ago when film was introduced to the human race. However, the tradition of heading on over to the neighbourhood cinema may just be breathing its final, dying breath.
$9 is the minimum wage here in California, so I imagine that's what a majority of extras and minor actors get paid; although it's scheduled to go up to $10 in 2016, woo hoo. (sarcasm) Also, there is still a drive in theater operating in my home town, and I consider myself very lucky to be one of the few of my generation to experience such a thing. We put a couch in the bed of a pickup truck, it was awesome. 
I think if the film industry does eventually collapse, and I'm not saying it will ever do that completely it will always be around, the focus will start to turn to online media. It will start to become more and more cost effective to make money off of YouTube (if you're good). I think this could be beneficial for the brickfilming community. Advertisers would come to us for the next big YouTube blockbuster.
While the collapse of Hollywood may have some really positive impacts on the future of film, I personally feel like it would be a great loss to lose theaters. Watching films on a big screen with tons of other people provides, to me, an experience and feeling that is very difficult to replicate in other places.
For one, seeing your film that you've labored over for potentially years playing in a theater to a large audience provides an experience that is difficult to replicate by just uploading your movie to YouTube. Maybe it's just that I was raised with the apparently outdated idea that movies belong on a theater screen, but seeing my Brickfilm shown on a theater screen (not only that, but a pretty historic one) at Brickfilix was one of the most validating and uplifting experiences in my "career".
On top of the satisfaction, there are just some films that are just so much better when seen in a theater / as a social experience with other people. The film Gravity is a recent example of a film that can really only be watched on a big screen with giant sound systems. On the social experience side, I always here about how one hasn't truly seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show until I've been to a real screening of it with other people there singing and dancing.
Also, I have a drive-in that's about 30 minutes away from where I live, and it is the bees knees.
Hollywood doesn't have to collapse, just make movies that people like, and adapt to technological changes.
just make movies that people like
The trouble is that nobody seems to be able to decide what exactly that would be.
Or they could spend less money on films and actually target the films they make at a more limited audience so that the intended audience would be way more into it, that would be nice.
On the whole, I'd like to see change in the way Hollywood films are made. Right now, the industry is over-saturated. It's not like I don't like superhero movies (and there are some really good ones, like the Dark Knight Trilogy, Iron Man, or even Man of Steel) but I'm getting sick of the constant sequels and re-boots. Or biopics. I'm getting tired of seeing them. Again, not that they're inherently bad, but at the end of the day it's more like watching glorified karaoke dancing rather than an original performance. It takes much more effort and originality to create and portray a fictional character from scratch. Even supposedly "unique" films such as The Perks of Being a Wallflower are bland and full of cliches (though I suppose this is more of a personal opinion). And don't even get me started on The Hunger Games...
It's perfectly understandable that studios aren't making many original films, since they want to make money--but that's not what film is about. Cinema has always been about innovation and pushing the boundaries. If the film industry followed this current mindset since the invention of the camera, we would still be watching silent, black-and-white films, wouldn't have numerous groundbreaking technological advances such as CGI post-production and editing programs, not to mention we wouldn't be making brickfilms. Or take, for example, Star Wars: everyone, including George Lucas himself, was sure it was going to flop--and what do you know, it just happened to become the most famous film ever. Granted, I haven't read up a whole lot about this, but it doesn't take a genius to see that by operating on their current business model, studios are stifling the creativity and originality that makes cinema so great. Not only that, but it also makes it more difficult for people who want to become directors/actors/writers to enter the business.
Still, there are still some directors who are still pretty much doing whatever they want, and making great original films, such as Guillermo del Toro, Christopher Nolan, etc. So I guess the solution is to make an a amazing breakout film and get such a towering reputation that studios will basically throw money at you to do whatever you want...
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